A country villa in Palazzo Pignano, near Crema, grown around the tower of a medieval castle and remodelled in a Romantic taste in the nineteenth century.
At a glance
Villa Marazzi stands on Via Roma in Palazzo Pignano, in the province of Cremona, about two kilometres south of Pandino on the road to Crema. The complex groups a tall tower, a farm courtyard lined with rustic buildings and a residential courtyard with the villa, set in a park of about 15,000 square metres. It is private and still owned by the Marazzi family.
History
The tower is the oldest part. The regional heritage catalogue dates it to the fourteenth century and reads it as probably the only recognisable remnant of the feudal castle that once stood here. The regional tourism board places it in the early 1400s.
Accounts of the villa differ too. The tourism board says Sermone Vimercati built it in 1528 as a country retreat, after his marriage to Ippolita Sanseverino founded the Vimercati Sanseverino line; the catalogue dates the villa to the seventeenth century. In the second half of the nineteenth century the whole complex passed to Count and General Fortunato Marazzi.
What you see
Seen from Via Roma, the tower rises from a sturdy battered base to a roof loggia added in the nineteenth century, with neo-Gothic twin windows on the street front. These changes belong to a nineteenth-century makeover that gave the whole complex a Romantic look.
It shows most on the long hay barns beside the road, whose brick walls are screened by elaborate Arab-inspired terracotta grilles. Inside the villa, the tourism board notes seventeenth-century frescoes and a billiard room decorated by the painter Pietro Ferrabini.
Key facts
- Tower: 14th century per the regional catalogue (early 15th per the tourism board); roof loggia and twin windows 19th century
- Villa: 1528 per the regional tourism board; 17th century per the regional catalogue
- Owners: Marazzi family since the second half of the 19th century; private property
- Park: about 15,000 m²
- Address: Via Roma 14, 26020 Palazzo Pignano (CR), Italy
- GPS: 45.391971, 9.568556 · Open in Google Maps
Practical information
Villa Marazzi is a private home. According to the regional tourism board it opens by reservation and during cultural events organised by the municipality of Palazzo Pignano; it was also opened during the FAI Autumn Days in 2020 and 2025. Check before travelling.
Getting there
The villa is on Via Roma, the road through the centre of Palazzo Pignano, and the tower and decorated barns can be seen from the street.
See the place
Sources
- Lombardia Beni Culturali, Torre di Villa Marazzi
- Lombardia Beni Culturali, Villa Marazzi – complesso
- in-Lombardia (Regione Lombardia tourism), Villa Marazzi a Palazzo Pignano
- FAI, Villa Marazzi
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